Campaign mailers place dirty work in hands of others

Editor's note: Record Staff Writer Kevin Parrish will analyze mailers and other campaign messages and trends leading up to the Nov. 6 general election.

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By Kevin Parrish

recordnet.com

By Kevin Parrish

Posted Oct. 11, 2012 at 12:01 AM

By Kevin Parrish

Posted Oct. 11, 2012 at 12:01 AM

» Social News

Editor's note: Record Staff Writer Kevin Parrish will analyze mailers and other campaign messages and trends leading up to the Nov. 6 general election.

Political action committees are a candidate's best friend.

Claim the high ground. Stay positive and on point. Leave the dirty work to someone else, and you've got plausible deniability.

It has worked since the 1940s.

The campaign to defeat Assemblywoman Cathleen Galgiani, D-Stockton, is filled with inaccuracies and distortions. Her opponent, Assemblyman Bill Berryhill, R-Stockton, can claim no connection.

Both want to represent the 5th District in the state Senate. How two incumbent members of the Assembly came to face off against one another is another story, one linked to political redistricting following the 2010 census.

The California Senior Advocates League has a political action committee that wants Galgiani gone. Problem is, the Sacramento-based group has crossed the veracity line.

In one mailer, after saying "Cathleen has become used to her taxpayer-subsidized car," the senior advocates claim she has tax-free income.

Not true. Lawmakers in both parties and in both houses pay state and federal taxes - like everyone else.

What the mailer doesn't mention is that Berryhill has enjoyed the same perks, car allowance included, as Galgiani. And his annual salary - $95,291 - was the same.

Over the past nine months, according to the Assembly's list of expenditures, Berryhill actually spent more on staff salaries, office costs and communication; Galgiani collected more in per diem pay.

Meanwhile, the political action committee on 11th Street in Sacramento prints this at the bottom of its mailer - "not authorized by a candidate or a committee controlled by a candidate" - and Berryhill gets a pass.

In bankrupt Stockton, incumbents and challengers have taken predicable courses to reach voters.

Two of those who want to serve on the next City Council - 22-year-old Michael Tubbs and 31-year-old Moses Zapien, both political newscomers - talk of change, reinvention of the city and innovation.

Tubbs, who has sent out traditional mailers and postcards citywide, has done a lot for his age: co-founder of a leadership academy at University of the Pacific and creator of a nonprofit organization known as Save Our Stockton top a list of accomplishments.

Nonetheless, his advertising claim to having the "experience" Stockton needs is nervy.

San Joaquin Delta College Trustee Jennet Stebbins gets the prize for having the most fun in communicating with voters.

First, in seeking re-election, she's attending dozens of events, showing up all over Stockton, but particularly south of downtown.

Second, she has a unique handout. She has created a four-page newsletter - Stebbins Gazette - that features Shakespeare and herbs on the front, a political pitch and a call for community harmony on the inside pages and a family business message on the back.